The guide
by kaktusic
Summary: Xavier has Scott volunteering for a very unpleasant, demanding task...Warning:some crude toilet humor,some bad language,not for the very squeamish ones.


**Several things you need to know here. **

**First, this story takes place early in X-history, soon after the All-new, all-different team (Ororo, Logan, Kurt, Sean, James, Peter) joined the X-Men; more specifically, between James' death and Jean's legendary first transformation in Phoenix.**

**Second, the question Kurt asks Scott is a question I asked people when I first saw…what I saw. Everybody laughed, and I couldn't figure why. **

_**Third, the story contains some unpleasant situations, bad language, mention of physiological bodily functions and crude toilet humor. Very squeamish and sensitive folks, don't read. **_

**o**

**o**

**o**

What Scott wanted to know was what had he ever done to deserve this kind of punishment.

That old man. That duplicitous, sly, backstabbing old man. He did this on purpose, Scott knew. This was his idea of subtle yet supposedly humorous way of showing Cyclops that he might be the field leader, but that Professor X was still in charge, and could reduce him to…to this, if he felt like it.

_They're strangers in a strange land here, _Xavier had said. _Alone and scared and lost in a world they're not accustomed to, _he had said_, and you know how a friendly hand means a world to someone who feels lost_.

Having told him that, the cunning bastard played on the card of Scott's memory of being orphaned, knowing that he wouldn't be able to say no. With such vicious, manipulative mind, he didn't need special powers to persuade people doing his will.

_Jean had already made great progress with Ororo_, Xavier twisted the final knife in Scott's gut. _Not only she helped her get re-accustomed with the City; they're making fast friends, too. Sean took Peter on a tour-de-New-York, and the boy was happy and excited like a five-year-old_.

Which left one lone misfit that hadn't seen anything of the New York and its ways, other than the walls of Xavier's mansion and the forest around it.

It went through Scott's mind that Wolverine could play Nightcrawler's babysitter- Wolverine didn't exactly _get along_ with anyone, but those two seemed to share affection for beer, if nothing else, and that was about 100% of common interest more than Nightcrawler shared with Scott- but he knew better than wasting his energy on mentioning it. First, Wolverine was a loose cannon and there was no telling what would happen if he felt that Kurt was around his legs more than necessary, and second, there was nothing short of telepathic brainwashing that would convince Wolverine into babysitting any of the young ones.

Scott, the idiot he was, was convinced by mere emotional blackmail form one crippled, middle-aged man, and a wide-eyed, eerie, yet surprisingly warm, enthusiastic expression from one elfin mutant, whom the Professor had accidently informed that he'd be going to the city with Scott _before_ he'd informed Scott himself.

_An unfortunate overlook on my part, dear boy_, Xavier had said, a serene expression on his face. _My apologies. I must be getting old_.

"Unfortunate overlook…my *&%%…" Scott muttered under his breath as he strode to the cabriolet, where Kurt was already eagerly expecting him, perched on the top of the backseat, tail swishing with excitement, white, sharp teeth showing in a large, child-like grin. His fangs were obvious from across the garage; the car was already sporting two-toed footprints as the tell-tale sign that Kurt didn't bother getting in the car the way regular people did.

"_Guten Morgen, Herr_ Cyclops!", he greeted cheerfully, squirming in the place like a dog eager to go running. The spaded tail tip wagged in a similar fashion.

"Why are you in the costume, Nightcrawler?" Scott said sharply. "Perhaps it escaped your notice, but it's not a circus performance we're going to attend."

He bit on his tongue; that came out a bit harsher than he'd wanted to. But Kurt merely grinned wider and flashed out a shiny, palm-sized device that Scott recognized at once.

"Watch this, my fearless leader", Kurt said, going over the keyboard. A sizzle of light, and in front of Scott, there was an Errol Flynn sitting in- or, rather, _on_ his car- grinning like a Cheshire cat, dressed in a white shirt and brown trousers.

"No", Scott cut off. His palms started to sweat with sheer frustration. Was _everything_ a game to this…person? What part of 'low profile' he had trouble understanding? "No way I'm going to New York City with Errol Flynn on my heels. The point of the image inducer is to make you inconspicuous, not to draw even more attention to yourself than you do in your normal condition!"

"Fair point. This better?"

Scott felt a vein bulge on his temple when he faced Groucho Marx, complete with a cigar, staring at him and grinning under his mustache.

"Or maybe…" Kurt said quickly, finally making himself appear like what Scott assumed was the approximation of how he'd look if he weren't blue, furry, pointy-eared, fanged, and…the rest of it. It was a pleasant, friendly face, with handsome features and a warm expression, and briefly, Scott wondered how good it must feel to be able to fake normalcy, if only for the short time. What would he give for being able to put aside those darn ruby quartz glasses for a few hours…lucky lad, that Nightcrawler, and does he really appreciate it? Scott doubted it.

Well, he got in the car, prayed to the nonexistent deity for strength to endure the next hour or two, and that was the beginning of it.

That was three hours ago.

It was bad enough that Kurt apparently had no concept of looking left and right before crossing the street, which left Scott extremely jittery as he had to pull him back by the arm at least four times in order to stop him from getting splattered on the asphalt jungle by one kind of vehicle or another, before hissing the basics of safe traffic behavior in his inducer-disguised ear (something, Scott bitterly thought, that Professor should have done prior to allowing Kurt this little adventure; or, in the least, should have informed Scott just _how much _unaccustomed to normal world Kurt had been). But Kurt didn't seem to particularly mind having been nearly flattened to the ground several times in a row; he grinned like an exuberant child and whispered to Scott: "That pole over there, that's a _real_ traffic light, right?"

Scott's stomach made an unpleasant twist.

It didn't get any better when it became obvious that, image inducer or not, the prime star of German acrobatics had the tendency to crouch on all fours whenever a siren, a loud bike, a bus, or any other kind of sudden noise would come across them, which on Manhattan really wasn't a rarity. Scott had to pull him up by the arm enough times to give him a habitual shoulder dislocation, but, unlike crossing the street, this was an instinctive behavior and didn't seem to be likely for Kurt to stop doing it, no matter how many times Scott gave him a tongue-lashing under his breath. He shrugged it all off with a smile, and Scott, massaging the now very palpable, throbbing vein on his forehead, clung firmly to the slim consolation that, up to that point, his charge hadn't started climbing the walls or teleporting away from the loud, murmuring, irritating crowd that surrounded them and, occasionally, would set them apart for a few seconds, resulting in one hair by another growing grey on Scott's head every such time. People could probably attribute the merry sight (that the two of them undoubtedly presented) to one sober man leading the other, either stoned or mentally challenged one- the way Kurt openly gaped at the neon commercials left little argument about that- but if one of them was to disappear in a puff of smoke, or started going all Spider-Man on them, it wouldn't go with such mundane explanation.

When Kurt enthusiastically expressed the desire to go to the Mall, since he'd never been to a grocery shop, let alone a mall, Scott obeyed, hoping it would be easier to keep an eye on him then here, in the open. When Kurt, equally enthusiastically, expressed the desire to buy half the Mall, most of it as presents for the others in the Mansion, Scott started to doubt if he'd made a tactical mistake. When Kurt's eyes glued to the crates of _Heinekein_, now on sale, stating wistfully that it reminded him of home, Scott was certain that was the case. And when he caught the mischievous twinkle in Kurt's eye while Scott was paying for all the damn things Kurt had set his puppy eyes on, he knew he'd just been masterfully played like a rookie.

"Is there any special thing to know about using the toilet here? As opposed to the toilets in the Mansion?" Kurt asked abruptly, looking Scott straight in the eye, without the slightest sign of embarrassment.

Scott, on the other hand, only stared at him for a moment or two, feeling blood rising to his face. How, exactly how, did he allow himself to end up in this kind of situation, explaining to a fully grown man, a guy only a few years younger than himself, how to use urinal in a mall? He thought he'd been through pretty much everything, but this was just absurd, and it was completely Xavier's fault.

He gave a few, quite incoherently stuttered, basic points, and took a crate of _Heineken_, a _Pink Floyd_ record, a selection of acrylic paints, a silk shirt, a box of cigars, seed of Mediterranean agava, a _Pilot_ pen, and a pair of red boxer shorts, from Kurt's hands and pointed him in the right direction.

"Um…" Kurt eyed him almost pleadingly. For the first time, the misfit seemed to be a tad insecure. "…you don't need to go?"

"No", Scott cut off and clenched his jaws. "I'll wait for you here."

Well, if he was to be truthful, he did need to go, but he was thoroughly disgusted with the prospect of using any toilet but his very own. It wasn't much due to the fact that he supposedly had traumas from the orphanage, where the bigger boys humiliated him by startling him while he was taking a leak, no matter what the professor said. And it wasn't due to the fact that he was a rigid, anal-fixated control freak, no matter what Jean said. He just liked the peace, quiet and tidiness of his own private quarters. He could hold it a while longer. And Kurt was intelligent enough to realize on his own how to use a darn urinal.

Several minutes later, Kurt returned with a confused expression on his face. Scott hoped, prayed, begged to whomever was listening, preferably Professor X, that Kurt won't have any questions or comments. And that he had remembered to wash his hands.

"Easier to target than the regular toilet", Kurt said critically, and Scott's blood pressure momentarily sky-rocketed, "but I don't understand which kind of weird person puts peppermint candies in each one, and why?"

"Local custom", Scott squeezed out_. Can't be much longer_, he repeated to himself like a mantra. _Can't be much longer…can't be much longer…_

"Subway!" Kurt exclaimed happily just when Scott had thought that things couldn't possibly get much worse. He strode down the stairs with such speed that several of the by-passers turned after him, and then after Scott when he bolted after his charge. He caught up with him at the station- thankfully, there wasn't many people waiting there- just when Kurt was leaning from the platform, perching precariously on its end, and was giving every sign of preparing to jump on the rails. Scott's heart momentarily felt frozen in his chest; his hand leashed out and he grabbed Kurt for the first thing he could grip, which happened to be his collar, and jerked him roughly backwards. A man standing several feet away eyed them warily.

"WhattaryouDOING?" Scott snarled in Kurt's ear, still gripping his collar with one hand and the shopping bag in the other, fighting the urge to shake him like a disobedient pup. Dear God, the kid could have ended up like a pancake a la Underground Railway, and it would have been Scott's fault, Scott's responsibility. He'd already lost a man in the battle; he'd rather cut off his arm than losing one in city sightseeing.

"Am I not supposed to go down and see what these rails are like?" Kurt asked with a sheepish smile.

"No, you're supposed to walk next to me and do as I tell you!"

The man close to them stopped pretending that he wasn't staring. He made a few steps away, expression alarmed. Scott noticed it with the periphery of his consciousness, and obviously so did Kurt, because he crooked an eyebrow and said: "Really, Scott, we have to stop meeting like this. People will notice."

Scott felt his face growing so red that it was certainly glowing like a traffic light, and his grip on Kurt's collar increased considerably. The unfortunate by-passer disappeared from view.

"Why are you so nervous?" Kurt asked innocently. "If there's someplace else you'd rather be, with someone else, I completely understand. I'll wait for you in the garage. I've never before been to one, either. It's fun to watch the cars come and go."

Kurt's face was so open, expression so childlike, and he so obviously honestly meant what he said, without a hint of sarcasm, that Scott suddenly felt like a complete jerk. He released his grip on Kurt's collar.

"No, it's…you're reckless, Nightcrawler. You leap before you look; and the city is dangerous. Streets and railroads are dangerous. Certainly in that traveling circus of yours you've traveled on enough roads to learn that?"

"Well, we stuck to local roads mostly, smaller roads, with much less traffic, and to smaller towns. And when we did visit Munich, Nurnberg, Stuttgart or other bigger cities, I wasn't really moving around much. I wasn't crossing the streets." He shrugged and grinned, showing all white teeth.

There was an awkward pause in which Scott found himself lost for words. He'd been for so long now so wrapped into his own self-pity about having to be on constant guard because of his optic blasts, that seeing Nightcrawler talking about his own considerable limitations with such casual ease threw him off-guard. Scott, despite his incessant internal pondering on the unfairness of life in which he could never allow himself to forget that his eyes had a killing power in them, couldn't imagine how it would feel never to be able to walk among people, to cross the street, to buy newspaper on the shop, or a hamburger at McDonald's, to ask the by-passer for a direction, to sit in a park with Jean's hand in his own. And this guy, this Nightcrawler, was all but gloating with being that…special. Scott didn't know whether to be appalled or amazed by that.

"Let's go", Scott heaved tiredly. His bladder was decently uncomfortable by that point, and he was bone tired, mentally and emotionally more exhausted than after the first Danger Room session with his All-new, all different X-men he'd supervised.

"Can we eat something?" asked Kurt, making small, happy leaps around his guide. Scott opened his mouth to tell him off for acting like a three-year-old, but upon seeing barely controlled mirth in Kurt's eyes, he realized that Kurt was making major effort just to keep walking on two legs rather than jumping feet up in the air with sheer joy to be out. Scott kept rocking his brains to figure out where did he already see something like that, and suddenly in dawned on him: this was how a dog acts when he's taken out for a walk after days or weeks spent on a short leash in the backyard, or in the cage of an asylum. Same exuberance, same thirst to see, to touch, to smell everything, same smiling expression and body that radiates joy in every move, same wagging tail… _crap!_

"- dear God, Kurt, keep that tail in the inducer's range! When you move it like that, it gets _very_ visible!"

"Oh. Sorry." The offending tail disappeared from sight. Scott scanned the area to see if anybody had fainted from horror. Wiping his perspirating eyebrow, he came to the conclusion that people's self-absorbedness of these modern times does have its benefits.

"So, McDonalds?" Kurt grinned.

Since Scott couldn't bring himself to argument that his bladder was going to explode and that each minute spent away from his private bathroom seemed like an agonizing year, he followed Kurt, heading for the closest McDonalds neon logo.

Naturally, it couldn't go smooth, even if Scott ordered to bring their McWhatevers with them and eat as they go, because Kurt gave his burger away to the hobo asking for change in front of the store, and went inside to buy another. In the meantime, Scott was cursing under his breath in front of the McFreakinDonalds, crossing his legs like a girl in her first-ever mini-skirt, and watching the said hobo tossing the hamburger in the first trash bin, staggering drunkenly away. By the time he dragged Kurt to the garage and into the car, he was seriously contemplating the hygienic and technical consequences of getting a car seat soaked through with urine. Things didn't get any better when Kurt said: "Uh-oh", and looked at him in alarm.

"_Uh-oh?_ What _uh-oh_? What do you mean, _uh-oh_?"

"I mean: uh-oh, the inducer's about to die on me", Kurt explained. "Low power…"

"Wha-" Scott nearly drove the car right through the red, and hit the brake in the last moment; the pedestrians, looking angry and scared, gave him dirtiest of looks he'd remember getting since hitting Wolverine over his teeth (and nearly breaking his own fist in the process). "What do you mean, low power? Didn't you remember to charge the thing before-"

"I did! We stayed too long; it's about to go off…"

Sweating, grinding his teeth, Scott had never felt such intense, urgent need to be outside of his skin, somewhere else, anywhere, preferably near his bathroom; he tossed his jacket over Kurt and hissed: "Duck down and don't move a muscle!", hit the gas with uncharacteristic vigor and begun fervently praying, from whichever remotely religious corner of his heart the atheist like him could find, that both his bladder _and_ Kurt's inducer don't give out until they're out of the city. He glanced at Kurt, huddled as low in his seat as possible, and, to his horror, saw the image that surrounded him sparking and sizzling, revealing every now and then the parts of what was hiding underneath, before restoring back; it would eventually die out completely, Scott knew, and if, say, the officer stops them, well…

"I'll port away", Kurt whispered while Scott was driving the craziest slalom in his life to het on the nearest highway entrance. "I can-"

"You'll port away my #%%! Sit down and keep quiet!" Scott roared over the sound of the engine; while Kurt coughed something that sounded suspiciously like '_that_ can be arranged', Scott entertained himself with the fantasy of slowly killing Xavier for this, provided he doesn't die on the road with uremic poisoning; Kurt's holographic image was turning into a vibrating web of multi-colored pixels, but thank God, thank whoever is there, they were leaving the city behind, the skyscrapers were getting replaced by the trees and family houses, and the traffic was low here, and now it was only an hour ride, only one hour…

Kurt's familiar dark curls peeked from under Scott's jacket, followed by a pair of bright golden eyes. Next came the pointy ears, then the white-toothed grin; finally Kurt tossed the jacket away, laughing as if it was all one big, harmless joke, as if they hadn't just been twelve minutes away from public scandal and lynching, as if Scott's bladder wasn't screaming in agony, as if everything was perfectly fine in the world.

"Woo-hoo! Now, _that's_ what I call a ride, my fearless leader!" he exclaimed with the exuberance of a pre-pubescent kid and a wide, sharp-fanged grin of a walking nightmare. "Nothing like unsuspecting audience to make one's heart-"

"Get down, Nightcrawler! We're not home yet, I don't care how few cars there is on the road, just shut up, hide and stay _still_ for once!"

"_Ach_, no need to get jumpy, my friend. All is well what ends well, and a little thrill never killed anybody. You know, out of everything I saw, I confess I'm the most puzzled by the custom of peppermint in the-"

The car came to a screeching halt, and only Kurt's impossible reflexes saved him from smashing headfirst into the windshield ("OW! _Lieber Gott_, Scott, what are you-")… Scott charged out of the car, jumped over the fence with unsuspected vigor, and headed for the nearest tree. He barely had the time to think how this is a definite proof that Jean was wrong and that he obviously _wasn't_ an anal-fixated control freak, when he heard a familiar _bamf_ and a deeply concerned voice behind him: "…Prostate?"

Scott opened his mouth for a caustic response, but he found himself without inspiration, now that one of his problems was being solved. Instead, he only managed a tired: "No. Would you mind?"

"You should go on regular basis if you have problems with that", Kurt said, reprimanding. "My brother got a nasty bug from a lady in Munich once, and he-"

"I don't have any _bug_! Especially not from a lady!" Scott felt his face burning, his temporary moment of peace irreparably shattered.

Kurt's eyebrow seemed to rise quizzically.

"I mean, from anybo…_my prostate is fine!_"

"Of course it is."

"I'm serious, Kurt!"

"No doubt about that. But if you ever wish to talk about it…"

"Listen, Nightcrawler, if I ever need an advice about the things one can get from a lady, I sure won't-"

He cut himself off barely in time. He'd nearly told Kurt that he'd certainly not seek the advice about sexually transmitted diseases from a guy whose chances of ever getting laid in his life were slimmer than those of coaxing Wolverine into wearing a tutu, but thankfully, his brain caught up, if a little late, and he stammered lamely: "…um…I…er…I'll let you know."

He turned around, feeling twenty pounds lighter and equivocally less irritable, expecting to see Kurt's shit-eating grin, but to his surprise, his teammate was very still, looking away from him, with an absent-minded expression on his face.

"Very well", Kurt smiled softly. "Shall we continue?"

_He couldn't have offended at that, did he? He couldn't know what I almost blabbed out, did he?_

Oh, like Hell he couldn't. Kurt had not only the respectfully high IQ; as Jean once said, he was probably the most _emotionally_ intelligent person that ever stepped their foot into Xavier's mansion. If there had ever been a guy who'd catch the undertone and the shift in Scott's voice and interpret them correctly, it was the one currently sitting at the passenger's seat, arms crossed, suddenly silent. And Scott didn't need Kurt's subtlety to feel that the abrupt ceasing of his adrenaline-fueled prattle didn't bode well.

And so they drove on, and Scott, who only two hours ago fervently wanted Kurt to keep silent and sit still for at least five minutes, now wanted him, with equal fervor, to finally say something. Anything.

"Listen, Kurt…um…I'm sorry if I'm…um…I'm not really a good…well…if I was a bit…company is not what I…"

Well, he'd better shut up. Obviously he was incapable of a coherent apology or small talk, and he was only undermining his authority like this. What was he going to say, anyway? Sorry, Kurt, for almost telling you that you are too much of a monster to even dream about holding a woman's hand, let alone something else, even if I do think it's true? Was it good for Kurt, anyway, telling him that his looks are _irrelevant_, that it's his _heart_ that matters, that he's actually a very _normal_ human being, that he _wasn't_ facing a lonely, miserable existence, when it was all a blatant lie? Why was Scott feeling this guilty anyway? It's not as he'd said something that wasn't true…perhaps it was better for Kurt to…

"It's all right, Scott", Kurt answered softly after a pause, interrupting Scott's train of thought, "you haven't been malicious. Merely realistic."

_Aw, crap._

"No, look, listen…I know I'm a bit difficult to…and I'm not the most amusing…and…I didn't want to tell…what you…"

"Scott", Kurt's smile grew. "Forget it. Thanks for showing me the lights of New York, by the way. You were a very good, patient guide, _mein Herr_. And I'm not exactly the easiest person to spend the day with, either. "

Scott screwed his face into something that couldn't really pass for a smile. Kurt's readiness to forgive wasn't making him feel any better; on the contrary. He was starting to feel like the biggest bastard under the sky. "I was the worst guide that this side of the continent had ever seen, Kurt…"

"Besides, don't be alarmed if my attitude seems to have changed. It has nothing to do with you."

Scott continued to twist his face into a resemblance of a smile. "Are we now at the '_it's not you, it's me_' part?"

"Well, somebody pinch me", Kurt chuckled. "Scott Summers cracking a joke. And a successful one, to that. Is there an end to the surprises this day brings?"

Being the subject of a joke, especially a not-so-subtly-sarcastic one, wasn't something that Scott usually thrived on, but he was relieved enough to have Kurt talking again that he was ready to let it pass. And to keep him talking, he said what next came to mind, as stupid as it was: "So, your brother had a bit of a bad experience, eh?"

Kurt changed again. Drastically. The smile vanished; his hands gripped his forearms as if he was trying to hug himself; knees drawn to his chest, tail coiling in stiff circles.

"That he did."

_What? What did I say now? WHAT…? _"I didn't know you have a brother. Guess he's not a mutant?"

"He was my foster brother. Older than me. No, he wasn't a mutant."

The past tense couldn't be lost on Scott. And the things started to dawn on him.

"Is he…?"

"Yes."

"Oh." There was something beyond the grief in that word; Scott never thought his voice could sound so grave, so hoarse. Raw.

"Sorry to hear that. Been a long time?"

"The night the Professor recruited me…"

Scott turned to look at Kurt so vehemently that he almost drove the car right into the fence.

"He died _that night_?" The night after which they fought Krakoa? And the night after that, Nightcrawler was seen juggling beer bottles on the piano and having a drunken time with Sean and Peter?

"_Ja_."

"Oh." Scott felt downright stupid. Did Xavier know of this? It was stupid to think he didn't. And what was going through Xavier's head at the time, then, putting an acutely grieving nineteen-year-old into the battle of that proportions? Into any battle? "Oh", he repeated, trying to think of something appropriate to say. "That's recent. I'm sorry."

"Thank you, _mein Freund_."

Scott was never the one to pry into other people's affairs, and he didn't get the impression Kurt was keen on the subject, so he successfully fought back the urge to ask him _how_ his brother died. Instead, he made a mental note to seriously discuss this with Xavier, and said: "I'm surprised that the Professor threw you into the fire like he did. You should have been given some time."

"There was no time, remember? Besides, I'm grateful I had been given an important task at the time. Instead of feeling sorry for myself, I had the opportunity to feel like a part of something important, something good, an instrument in helping to save somebody's life. It mattered. It might have saved my sanity and my soul."

Scott found no answer to this. If it had been _his_ brother who had died, Scott knew he wouldn't be able to raise a hand for two weeks, let alone to fight. He would mourn, curse the life, wallow in grief. But not this guy. He seemed to bounce back easily in every way conceivable, both in the Danger Room and in his spirit, and whichever kind of rubber he'd been made of, Scott was envious of it.

"Scott", Kurt turned to look straight at him; even with his eyes on the road, Scott could feel the intensity of it. "I would appreciate if this could stay between us. It's not my favorite conversation topic to discuss with the others."

"Of course not. Don't worry, Kurt. Everything stays here."

"_Danke_. The same goes, of course, for your issue as well."

"I'm gla…_my issue_? Which issue?"

"That you're a rigid control maniac who will go to the lengths of causing damage to his health so he wouldn't have to go to the toilet in public?"

"Kurt, I swear…you little…how you…_I don't have any bloody issue_!" Scott's grip on the wheel nearly slipped with the sweat his palms momentarily produced. And he realized that, despite his ruby quartz glasses, he'd only now realized the full meaning of "seeing red". He controlled the irresistible urge to swat the smartass grin from the blue guy's face with a full-force optic blast- it would be a Hell to explain that to Xavier _and_ Jean, and he wasn't quite keen on escorting another teammate's body to his homeland and to his grieving family, if he had any- but the temptation was great; so great that he furiously considered crashing them both into the first tree in hope the sly bastard wouldn't survive the impact.

Stupid, he knew. Nightcrawler would teleport away faster than Scott could open the door to jump out. And he wasn't quite keen on his teammates escorting _his_ body to the burial, either. That bastard, too perceptive and intruding and irritating for his own good. That little $##&&.

"We all have _issues_", Kurt said with unnerving calm. "You see, I was terrified of going into public this morning, Scott…"

"Like Hell you did! You were a bloody circus performer; people were staring at you your whole life, and don't tell me that an attention whore like yourself didn't love every minute of it!"

"That's different; I was supposedly an actor with painted face. They came to me _expecting_ me to shock them, but still believing I was normal; they were easy to deceive because of that. People see what they want to see," Kurt explained, irritatingly uninsulted. "This today was different. _I_ was the one who had to believe I was normal. And I couldn't. I've never walked down a street before. With or without the image inducer, I felt like a monster. Something that mothers use to scare the children into obedience when they tell them stories. _'If you're not good, the horrible Nightcrawler will arrive in a puff of smoke and take you away.' _Something like that. The whole night before, I was imagining the worst possible scenarios for today. Everybody will see through my disguise, I won't know how to act in public, the inducer will go on a fritz…"

"Well, congratulations on clairvoyance, because it all pretty much happened!"

"Except for the first thing, the only thing everything comes down to. No-one saw me for what I am", Kurt smiled with his warmest, most annoying smile ever; "and I couldn't have made it without you. I'd never dare going alone today, and even if I did, I'd have messed it horribly. You were probably unaware of it, but you guided me through one of my greatest fears, and did a great job out of it. Thank you, Scott."

Scott glanced aside to see if Kurt was making fun of him, or was simply serious and insane. The lack of smugness in his smile was an indication to the latter, even if Scott was too pissed and too much of a skeptic to believe it.

"And, even if I was more or less unaware of it", Kurt continued, "I sort of forced you to face your own…limitation. Tell me, when would you _deliberately_ go to pee in the woods, if I hadn't been around to drag you all over New York the whole day long?"

"Nightcrawler, I swear to God, I'll break your…"

"A liberating experience, wasn't it?"

"NIGHTCRAWLER!"

"Of which we'll never speak again", Kurt added hastily when Scott's glasses started to glow dangerously red. "To anyone."

They were silent after that. For some time.

"It was", Scott suddenly said in a neutral, rigid voice, staring straight at the road.

"_Vas_?"

"Liberating."

"Ah." Kurt grinned, white teeth contrasting with his dark face.

"As for being your guide…welcome."

"…"

"I'll deny everything."

"I'll never say a word."

"You couldn't keep silent for half an hour if your tail was at stake."

"For this, I will."

"Good."

More silence. They were close to their home already. If anything was left to be said, it had to be now.

"So, will you need company for your next visit to the city?"

"Thank you, Scott. I won't need it; I think I can manage on my own now…provided that I keep attention on the inducer's durability."

"That's good", Scott said gruffly. "Because I don't think I could survive another day of male bonding where you're concerned."

"Oh, I'll find another victim, if needed. _Herr_ Wolverine, for example, is an admirer of beer, much like myself, even if his taste for _Budweiser_ leaves a lot to be desired."

Scott snorted. "I consider myself a patient person, Kurt, and I was sorely tempted to kill you at least twice. Wolverine would shred you to _very_ small pieces if you spent more than an hour alone with him."

"That's because you're no fun at all."

"Psycho killer like him is, naturally, all fun personified."

"At least he doesn't fiddle around answering questions."

"Like what?"

"Like, why _exactly_ people put peppermint candies in the urinal?"

END

(I know…I know. I had to get it out of my system. I'll never do it again.)


End file.
